Trumbo hopes to power through expectations with new team

March 19, 2014

Updated 8:29 p.m.

1 of 1

‘Mark has the ability to go out and have a 40-homer season, and it won't shock anybody,' said Angels general manager Jerry Dipoto of Mark Trumbo, who hit 34 in 2013. CHRISTIAN PETERSEN, CHRISTIAN PETERSEN, GETTY IMAGES

‘Mark has the ability to go out and have a 40-homer season, and it won't shock anybody,' said Angels general manager Jerry Dipoto of Mark Trumbo, who hit 34 in 2013. CHRISTIAN PETERSEN, CHRISTIAN PETERSEN, GETTY IMAGES

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Mark Trumbo spent two seasons with Torii Hunter in Anaheim, where he picked up quite a bit of knowledge from the noted clubhouse philosopher.

“You are what you are,” Trumbo remembers the veteran Hunter telling him several times, through the peaks, valleys and in-betweens of a six-month season.

Trumbo, now 28 and no longer an Angel, knows Hunter meant that in a positive way: “At the end of the year, whether you start hot or not, your numbers are always gonna be there. If you’re a power guy, you’re gonna get your homers. You’re gonna get your RBIs.”

But he’s hoping to be a little bit different this year – a little bit better.

“I’m three years in now, and if people have seen me play, they probably know what they’re going to get,” Trumbo said recently. “That’s not to say that I’m content with that, though.”

He’s not content. Now a key middle-of-the-order hitter for the Arizona Diamondbacks, who open their season against the Dodgers at 1 a.m. Saturday in Australia, Trumbo is hoping to mildly reinvent himself – in 2014.

The Angels dealt him in December after almost a decade in the organization, partially because he was their most valuable asset not named Mike Trout and partially because of a popular, sensible view that he had reached a plateau in Anaheim.

Trumbo’s numbers last season provided a near-perfect glimpse into the new way statistics are perceived around baseball. He hit 34 home runs and drove in 100 runs but hit .234 with a .294 on-base percentage and struck out 184 times.

The first part of that stat line is fantastic; the second part terrible. Altogether, Trumbo was probably a reasonably above-average hitter, and he’s not about to dispute that.

The strikeouts were particularly damning, taken by many as a sure sign his approach at the plate was irrevocably flawed and liable to worsen.

Not so, according to the man who traded him away, Angels general manager Jerry Dipoto.

“The general consensus is that if you strike out a lot you must not be a smart hitter, but Mark actually is,” Dipoto said. “He’s a much more cerebral hitter than people give him credit for. He’s incredibly intelligent. The swing-and-miss is just part of his game, part of the tradeoff.

“Mark has the ability to go out and have a 40-homer season, and it won’t shock anybody. You couldn’t put a cap on the number of home runs you think he could hit. He gets the most out of his skillset that he has.”

It’s easy to forget, given his light-tower power, that Trumbo was once an 18th-round pick who couldn’t crack the Angels’ top prospect lists, let alone the national charts. He hit .220 with 13 home runs in his first full season of professional baseball.

But he modified his approach over time, learning to harness his power.

Now, for the Diamondbacks, Trumbo will man left field, a position he hardly played with the Angels, because he proved better in right and even better at first base, where he developed from a below-average defender into a solid one.

“He turned himself into a much better first baseman over the course of time, and the same will be true in the outfield, because he’ll work at it,” Dipoto said last month.

Trumbo offers an astute analogy about his defense.

“I kind of equate it to being in school,” he says. “If you’re not a good test-taker, you gotta do your homework. You gotta do all the work you can to make sure you have a chance out there. I have some tools, but I also feel like there’s a lot of things I probably don’t do quite as well. It’s of the utmost importance to get as many reps that I can.”

It’s the same at the plate, where he hopes to limit his strikeouts this season.

“That’s been the knock on me throughout my whole career,” Trumbo said. “It’s something I’ve fought, and it’s something I put a lot of thought into in the offseason: How am I going to improve? But ultimately if I go up there with a passive approach, I don’t do very well. That’s just the bottom line. Letting good strikes go by is not something that I’m terribly good at.”

But the things he is terribly good at – hitting homers and driving runs in – are valued highly by many across baseball.

Trumbo is making $4.6 million this season in his first trip through arbitration. He stands to make much more in the future, even if he doesn’t improve.

And if he does, he could become one of the highest-paid players in the game.

User Agreement

Keep it civil and stay on topic. No profanity, vulgarity, racial
slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about
tragedies will be blocked. By posting your comment, you agree to
allow Orange County Register Communications, Inc. the right to
republish your name and comment in additional Register publications
without any notification or payment.